Better to arrive late to a party than to miss it entirely! Just think, you have many albums worth of great music to discover, and you do not need to endure the long waits between albums that those who followed LC all along had to endure.

Given this opportunity--and this is only my opinion of course--I think you should try to go through his music in a slow, methodical manner and in roughly the order it was released. From reading Sylvie Simmons excellent biography, you already know that LC's lyrics have many interpretations and elicit a spectrum of emotions, so why not approach this gradually and see where your thoughts stray? A benefit (i think) of becoming acquainted with LC's songs in chronological order is that you will better appreciate the way that LC allowed his music to evolve over time without ever really changing the intensity his lyrics. Because LC was such a brilliant writer his lyrics were always praised, but his talent for creating the accompanying music was seldom discussed; I think you will be pleasantly surprised to find that he almost always wedded his lyrics to interesting tunes.

In conclusion, my prescription is to buy "Songs of Leonard Cohen" and "Songs from a Room" and listen to them once or twice a day for several weeks. If you find yourself craving more, you just might be ready for "Songs of Love and Hate."

Good listening, and please post again after completing this induction therapy.

Thank you "its4inthemorning". First of all for your prescription and your sincere response to my post, and second of all for not accusing me of only caring about him because he is gone. As a librarian (at a public school in Idaho), my instinct was to go chronologically, but I wasn't sure.
Again, thanks for the sincere response. I will keep in touch after following your lead.

Hello good people. I stumbled across your fine forum today and thought I'd sign up. I'm James, a singer-songwriter from Tasmania and Beijing, and have been a big fan of Leonard for a lot of years now. I think my life has been directed in many ways by the sounds I heard growing up, including George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and of course Leonard Cohen. The idea that a song has to mean something has always stuck with me, and thus I have struggled to find career opportunities in an industry that is nowadays primarily concerned with entertainment.

I think that Leonard's passing has had a strange effect on my psyche because, ever since I started writing my own poetry and songs, I dreamed of opening a show for him. Now he is gone and I feel more isolated as a musician and as a human. His obvious disillusionment with the world, as expressed in his final album, really leaves me wondering about our future. Leonard was always an embodiment of hope, at least to me. His words, made magic by their musical form, seemed to suggest a grand structure to the nature of existence, as if all that we perceive as chaos is actually a manifestation of a divine will that desires to create higher states of order.

I don't think he came to doubt this underlying metaphysical assertion on his deathbed, however I do believe that he had thought he would have seen more obvious signs of positive change before he was ready to leave his body.
Possibly (if not probably), the whole Donald Trump running for president phenomenon served as a fascist panic alarm to a Jew, but the cultural motif of people wanting it darker when it comes to art is hardly a new thing. I'm no different; I had that allure towards the darkness for a long time, believing the realms of sorrow, solitude, occultism, grief and madness were the only meaningful motivators of creative inspiration. Do we just like to have it confirmed that suffering is a part of life? That's probably part of it, but I fear that we may have come to use this as an excuse to avoid the effort that is necessary to rise above the mess that we have made during the brief evolutionary foray we call history.

Anyhow, nice to be here, and I look forward to some great Leonard related discussions.

Hello Fellow Cohen - ites
My name is Bob and I'm new to this forum. For my first post, I'd like to share how I came to discover Leonard.
I'm fifty - nine years old, so I guess I was around twenty - five when a friend was visiting my apartment. He'd
never heard anything by Phil Ochs, so I played him Phil's album, PLEASURES OF THE HARBOR. The next evening
my friend comes over and wants to thank me for introducing him to Phil by introducing me to Leonard by
playing LC's first album. When the last song on side two ended my friend asked what I thought. Well, I was hooked.
I wanted to hear more of Leonard's music. My friend had all his records. We went to his place and stayed up all night
mainlining on Leonard Cohen. What a beautiful non - drug high. I have since collected all his records.
Not long after my friend calls to tell me that Leonard is going to in concert at the Wiltern in Los Angeles. We had front row seats. Man, was he great, funny, entertaining. Afterward, we went to the back door of the theater where
fans waited. Leonard didn't keep us waiting. He spent about an hour signing autographs. I was wearing an undershirt
with my friend's drawing of Phil Ochs on it. Leonard was amused. Skip ahead about ten years. My wife and I are now
living in Portland, Oregon. One day I learn that LC is coming to town and since my old lady would rather listen to
Prince, Michael Jackson, ect. she does not want to go. So, I took a girl from work. Once again, we had front row seats. Once again, we waited at the back door. When he came out I asked him where I could write to him out.
"Come on in. I'll give you my address", he says. I follow him inside, he jots down his home address in Canada.
I thank him and leave him to the other fans. I never did write to him, but I still have that piece of paper.
I was sad to hear of his passing, but the body may be gone, but that great voice and great songs will live on.
I like to think that Leonard, Phil, Roy Oberson ect are keeping the Lord and everyone in Heaven entertained.
Thank you for listening.
Bob

Hi everybody! Happy to be here! I'd like to tell you something about my interests in Cohen's songs, poetry and novels. I have to apologize for my language errors cause I am german and my English is not that good.
I am living near Munic and was an early Cohen fan and then again a late Cohen fan.

I climbed up to become a Cohen-fan to his rose on its ladder of thornes

Like a lot of Cohen-fans I discovered his first album at the beginning of the 70th and fell in love with the magic of it! Daydreaming him as somebody complete different as his songs and he himself were I didn't follow his next songs and forgot him until one of his last concerts in Munic.

There I went out of nostalgia and was thrilled to find this charismatic elegant chansonnier who was a wonderful narrator in symbols and metaphorical pictures of my own
spiritual and religious world and experiences.

Then I forgot him again. And then something happened which hopefully will not lead you to kick me out of this forum as somebody complete crazy.

I mean it is crazy! Something similar happened to me some years before and now I got the same inner somehow urgent message again from a dead artist: No longer to wait collecting the spiritual treasures and gifts left behind in my memories of my hippy-youth.

Are you still reading? Thanks a lot!

This kind of spiritual message is urging you to read everything of and about this artist.

And so I am here now and know a lot more than about Cohen's biography and his wonderful art work.

R.I.P. Leonard Cohen! Well, I am sure that's too boring for you and your spirit is busy like before.
I am sure in the minute Cohen saw god he also saw all the gifts, love and help he got in his life but couldn't feel then.

On Cohen's words in his lyrics and poetry I could spiritually climb higher and higher on this ladder of thornes until I found myself on top of the rose, love. (metaphor of Cohen's window song.)

I really love his works of art and the fundamental truth in it. And I love reading and discussing more of it here in all your words.

I am from the southern part of India and mea culpa, I found Leonard Cohen around 2 months back... One of the writers mentioned about Leonard Cohen in a vernacular daily and it started my search... The first song which I heard was Dance to the end of the love...I am transfixed.. Then i share this youtube video with a well read cousin of me who is around 10 years elder to me.. We used to chat a lot on music and literature..now he asks in a startling voice..did I ever mention this song to you?? I say No... Then he says.. what a coincidence ..this is my all time favourite and I heard it yesterday also.. Then I started the Leonard Cohen journey.. and I am completely glued.. As I go through each song I feel like he is speaking to me in such close quarters and I felt so much akin to him.. He appeared so kind , humble..every line pregnant with so much layers....I am very happy to be here.. Specifically I am from Bangalore and I would like to join any congregation where we can remember and celebrate him...
Thanks
Renjith

Hi - Just joining; great to meet such a warm body of LC fans. Was first introduced to his songs as an undergraduate many years ago - slowly warmed to him, maybe our paths have been parallel to some extent. Thought I'd like to start by sharing this photo, which I took at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, near Birmingham UK. This is a large plot of land with numerous memorials to UK citizens who lost their lives in armed conflict, mostly after 1900. Sounds a bit ghoulish, but it is a beautiful, serene and poignant place set in the Staffordshire countryside. The central Armed Forces Memorial is on a mound, with two concentric walls engraved with the names of those who have died since WW2. There is a cleft set in each of the walls so that at 11:00 a.m. GMT on the eleventh day of the eleventh month (World War 1 Armistice Day) a shaft of sunlight falls on a central wreath. The picture below is clearly reminiscent of the famous line in "Anthem", although of course LC wasn't referring to this in the song, or vice versa.

Nick, the description and photo are interesting, the "light getting in" at the memorial is sort of like the way that Eratosthenes first measured the circumference of the Earth by using the fact that on only one day of the year the noon sun would shine down a certain well in Sylene, Egypt.

There is much for Cohen fans to discover here on the forum, if you start exploring you may find yourself spending a lot oi time here.

Another interesting site that is updated daily with things Cohen may be found by googling "cohencentric."

That's a very interesting blurb about you, Dahlia. You're providing a very valuable and needed service. With your educational and experience background, there are many areas of the Forum that you should find interesting. Welcome!!

you've come to the right place if you are a Leonard Cohen fan. There's a lot here to see, take your time and poke around. What is the genesis/history of your fan-dom? BTW, I grew up in the town next to yours, small world.